Road Trip!

My Mom's family has been planning a huge family reunion for years and it finally came. I was all sorts of excited. It was just my mom's parents and their progeny, but since they have 13 kids, 66 grandkids, and 14 great-grandkids plus spouses of many, it was a huge family reunion. There were 106 of 121 possible in attendance, I believe. It was awesome! I love that family.
The reunion was in Missouri. Before last month the farthest East I'd been was the very western edge of Wyoming. I'd been in 9 different states. Now I've been as far East as Illinois and have seen 15 states. Woo me!
So, my bro Chris, his wife Christine and their two toddlers, Kaien, (almost 3) and Emmy (1 1/2) met us at our house Wednesday night. Thursday Aaron had to work a half day, but we all piled into our Durango and picked him up at noon and started toward Missouri, every seatbelt taken. It was pretty crowded. I tried to get a pic of everyone, but this was the best I could do.

Originally we planned to stop halfway to our destination and camp, but we ended up driving straight through to MO. It was about 20 hours. We took turns driving and tried to sleep in the car, but we were all pretty spent when we arrived at my grandparents house in the morning.
Wyoming is kinda ugly. It was dark for the whole drive through Nebraska, which is too bad, because it looked like it might have been pretty. Missouri is beautiful! Trees on both sides of freeway that go on forever, it seems. Not pine, but leafy trees. There were tiny towns all over the place, very quaint looking and all so green and pretty. And we wondered what on earth we are doing living in the middle of the desert when there is such a place as Missouri to live in. Then we arrived at our destination and got out of the car and were drenched in the heavy humidity. Oh. I failed to get any pictures, really, of the landscape in Mo. :(

The reunion was from Friday to Monday. We had a blast. There were several cabins with bunk beds that even had mattresses. My immediate family shared one.

Here we are in the lodge waiting for breakfast. We our wearing our family shirts that Aaron designed. This was Saturday morning. Friday we couldn't really get Morgan to eat anything. Friday night he slept long and hard. There was even a HUGE thunder storm that woke up all the adults and kept us awake for a long time, long before we wanted to get up. I didn't know storms like this happened. The thunder was constant. The lightening flashes were constant. The rain was drenching. And it lasted FOREVER. It would have been pretty awesome if we weren't trying to sleep.
Anyway, Morgan wasn't waking up. Our family had all gone up to the lodge for breakfast but Morgan was still sleeping. He would stir a bit, open his eyes, but it was too much for him to keep them open. So I dressed him while he wasn't fully coherent. We tried waking him, but it wouldn't last. Then we said something about getting up to have breakfast and that perked him up and he tried to get out of bed but didn't even have the strength to stand, so he fell to the concrete floor. I put him back on the bed and he was falling asleep again. "Let's go eat, Morgan." "Eat!" And he's awake. We carried him to the lodge but breakfast wasn't ready yet. So we sat down to wait.

Poor sleepy Morgan waiting for food.

When we did get some food for the boy he was kinda like a maniac. His hands shook as he violently stuffed pancakes and eggs and potatoes into his mouth. It took him a while to realize he was eating eggs and that he didn't like eggs.

After breakfast Morgan is feeling much better. He's playing the piano with his Uncle Casey.